


Why I Love Paranatural

by Rubyya



Category: Original Work, Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: School Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubyya/pseuds/Rubyya
Summary: I had to write something for school, so I wrote something about how much I loved Paranatural. In typically school fashion it's not what I was supposed to do but I spent hours on it so I want to post it somewhere.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Why I Love Paranatural

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to AnikkaDiggory for looking over this multiple times and cleaning up my mistakes. And please remember the rant was written for people who don't know about Paranatural already.

Let me tell you about Paranatural, a webcomic I started reading sometime between ninth and tenth grade. Paranatural is the story of a boy named Maxwell Puckett as he moves to the town of Mayview, where everything is not as it seems. Vampires and ghosts mingle with spirits of all sorts of colors and sizes ranging from huge skeletal birds to ninja rabbits, all surrounded by colorful wisps of energy. Paranatural does many things well, and one of those is blending genres. Paranatural can have serious moments, funny moments, and even serious moments and funny moments at the same time. It is not just a fantasy, serious, or comedy comic; it’s all three, and that’s something most books struggle with. Most books have to separate their chapters for a specific feel. One chapter will be the serious chapter, and then the next chapter will have a lighter tone. Paranatural is able to have a chapter that is serious and also a calm break at the same time.

Another thing the comic does is having well-written characters. Every character feels like a new friend. The middle schoolers talk and act like middle schoolers. The adults aren’t perfect people that have everything together. If anything, the adults in the comic have their stuff together even less, they’re just better at hiding it. Bad characterization of characters is something most books targeted towards teens struggle with. I’m never able to relate to literary characters because they are magically perfect or have problems I deem stupid, like a boy- or girlfriend in middle school. On the other hand, iIn most books, if you’re a side character, your chances of getting character development that is not plot-related is close to zero. Paranatural doesn’t do this though. Every side character feels like a real person, as if they are someone I could hang out with despite being a vampire.

Another problem I have with teen books that Paranatural does not have is the representation of the LGBTQ+ community. If teen books have an LGBTQ+ character, it is typically marketed as LGBTQ+ and romance. Even books not marketed as that have this problem. Nico DiAngelo from Percy Jackson, is gay, but nothing he does in the books is remembered except for his sexuality. Paranatural does not have this problem, and has not one, but two canon gay couples that are portrayed well. When one character, Mina Zarei, freaks out about how cute Agent Day looks, she goes back to talking about important business in the next sentence. Every other teen romance would have Mina and Agent Day too flustered to talk to each other, and the two of them would be running around in circles trying to figure out if the other liked them. This is something I don’t relate to, but it’s what everyone seems to expect of me. 

I love that Mina and Day, two women that are their own heroes, are able to go from flirting to threatening in the same sentence and don’t have to deal with romantic drama. Drama because of their stupid coworkers however, they still do have to deal with. The other gay relationship is between two teachers at the school, Mr. Spender and Mr. Garcia. They care about each other. They don’t try to get back at the other or try to make the other jealous. They have the sort of stable relationship that actually leads to better things, and it’s really refreshing. Teen books don’t usually show a happy relationship, and show only the bad parts and the problems, which isn’t how the real world works.

Now, you’d be here all day if I talked about all the characters and how much I love them, so I’ll make it quick. Let’s start talking about the protagonist, Max. Max is very sarcastic, but he also cares about people, even those he met a few seconds ago. Despite only having been in Mayview for five days, he’s learned to accept his strange new world. He’s still very skeptical about the whole “ghost and spirits exist, don’t get your head bitten off” bit, but overall, he reluctantly accepts everything. This is something I do. With sarcasm by my side, when changes happen that I have no control over, I make them my own. 

Another character, Isabel, is sort of leader of the Activity Club and forces Max to join their ranks. Through the chapters, we learn that she’s a leader, yes, but she’s also a kid that has her own problems. Despite this, she tries her best to be there for everyone, especially after she loses her best friend, Eightfold, the sentient fortune teller. This is also something I do, feeling that I have to be strong for those around me every second, and I worry that I might lose someone I care about. Ed is the jokester of the club, someone who attaches himself to Isabel. I don’t personally feel like we have much in common, but his struggle of breaking himself away from Isabel and trying to be his own person is something I know a lot of teens struggle with. He is lucky enough to have a spirit named Muse that tries his best to help. 

The last member of the club, excluding Mr. Spender, who is the teacher of the club and has the mental capacity of a child, is Isaac. Isaac quite quickly became a comfort character for me. After hurting someone he cared about deeply, he became very angry in general, and felt that the world was against him. Mr. Spender keeps him in the dark about ghost and spirit knowledge. Isaac is left out of something important to him. Being left out of the know by my friends and having them not trust me is something that I’m also terrified of. The poor kid’s spirit is also a very angry storm cat that constantly tells Isaac to do the wrong thing. I just want to give Isaac lots of hugs and cuddles and tell him everything is going to be ok. He’s kind of like my brother, which is another reason I latched on to Isaac. Both he and my brother get angry easily about all sorts of random matter, and it just makes Isaac feel even more real. 

Finally, this brings me to the community of Paranatural, the crazy extended family of fandoms. Most teen fandoms are pretty toxic places where people think a certain way and don’t believe anything different. No one listens to me when I talk in most fandoms. The Paranatural fandom is so much better than that though. Paranatural is a webcomic where anything is possible, from the whole town exploding to everyone being a cat. No theory is too crazy, and that allows for a lot of openness. When I go to the Paranatural Discord, people listen when I talk. I’m known as the crazy Jewish girl that loves Isaac there, and honestly, I’m very ok with that. 

One user I really hit it off with is a user named JuJue. Directly after they joined the Discord, bam, we started chatting. Now, we’re really good friends, and every time we talk, I get excited and have a fun time, no matter what we talk about or how long we talk. We both mentioned liking a certain alternate universe, or AU for short, and are now having so much fun writing it together. As you’ve probably guessed by all this writing, I like to write. It’s something that makes me happy. I can’t draw or dance or play a sport, but I can write and share my feelings that way. 

At this point I mostly just write fanfiction, about the Paranatural gang being happy, and I love doing it. It makes me happy to write something as crazy as Ed throwing a paintbrush at an already angry Isaac and have people laugh at that. While I didn’t write Paranatural, it is something that makes me happy when I’m feeling down, and is always there to give me a laugh. The characters are all children whom I want to hug and to help become happy. I love being a Paranatural fan, no matter what happens with the world right now.


End file.
